Four years—that’s the optimal amount of time it takes to complete a bachelor’s degree. While college isn’t on a fixed time-limit for graduation, most undergraduates would like to get their bachelor’s in a four-year time frame. In that timeframe, students will attend their scheduled classes, either part-time or full-time, with the goal of graduation in mind. In a perfect world, just that degree will be enough for future employers to make an informed decision to hire a brand-new college graduate.

This isn’t the case anymore.

An individual student is now scrambling into a job market that is filled with other graduating individuals with the same goal—get a job as quickly as possible. Preferably, a job that pays a living wage and is in the field that was studied. A bachelor’s degree now gets a candidate lost in the shuffle, as the job market is completely saturated. According to a survey conducted by the National Association of College Employers (NACE), overall hiring for the class of 2024 is expected to dip by 1.9%, and competition for positions has doubled since 2022. Employers expressed concerns regarding specific skills that graduates are lacking, such as problem-solving, interpersonal skills, oral and written communication, and leadership qualities.

One club that is looking to help students expand those skills is Model United Nations (UN). Stockton University’s Model UN was established in 2012 and has been led by Dr. Tina Zappelle since its inception. The goal of Model UN is to provide participants with hands-on experience with research, communication, and leadership skills in an environment that simulates UN diplomacy.

According to the Model UN website, hundreds of thousands of students take part in Model UN around the globe, and 331 colleges and universities attended the three in-person conferences that were held in New York City, Washington D.C, and an international conference in Kobe, Japan.

The process begins with researching your designated country. This involves teamwork from everyone involved, as the research done will contribute to a position paper. The position paper is a two-page document that goes into detail about your country’s position on a certain issue, which all delegates will debate on at the conference. Often, students will be assigned countries that don’t align with their personal world-views, and while challenging at first, Zappile believes that those assignments provide the most growth, professionally and personally. The goal is to give students the skill of understanding perspective, hence why Stockton’s Model UN will choose countries that will offer better learning opportunities. In the last five years, Stockton’s Model UN has represented countries such as Colombia, France, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, and Thailand.

In a statement on the Stockton Model UN website, Zappile says:

“It can be difficult to empathize with countries with positions that our students disagree with or would actually suffer harm from if they were living there. Empathy does not mean to side with leaders of these countries but instead to understand their positions and their perspective. There is a huge difference between the two, and we are very careful to identify that boundary. In the world system, understanding the other side can lead to better outcomes with the possibility of avoiding war as a way to resolve disputes between countries.”

Camille Benoit, President of Model UN and Political Science Major, says Model UN was not only beneficial across the board for her educational experience at Stockton but also significantly helped organize Benoit’s future prospects. “Model UN has given me many different opportunities to help me better prepare for my future,” said Benoit. “I recently had the opportunity to serve on NMUN staff at our DC conference where I was a chair, and during this process, I made connections with industry leaders who were also volunteer staff. It has given me the opportunity to network and make connections for when I enter the workforce.”

The skills practiced and perfected in Model UN translate extensively to a professional work environment. Former Stockton and Model UN alumnus Lake Forte actively uses the skills they learned from their time in the club in their current job as an educator. Forte attended Stockton from 2018-2022 and was President of Model UN in 2021. The collaborative nature of Model UN, as well as the grind of researching and writing position papers not only prepared them for a professional working environment, but also enabled them to be able to communicate with coworkers seamlessly. “I am currently working in education, and the communication skills I built through Model UN have been absolutely vital,” said Forte. “It is so important to be able to connect and build relationships with students and staff alike, and the socialization and communication done in Model UN was massively helpful in that.”

Another alumnus, Jess Peoples, can attest how Model UN prepared her for post-graduate life. Specifically, the skills learned in Model UN were useful for interviewing. While at a job fair for Criminal Justice majors, Peoples partook in a mock interview. The interviewers turned out to be part of Jewish Family Service (JFS), who noted her interviewing skills and asked for her resume. 

Peoples was hired a few weeks later, which became her first job out of college. Peoples believes her resume showed that she had experience that other potential candidates didn’t, and that gave her an edge over the competition. “I think it’s possible to get particular jobs without extra experience, but the experience I gained from extracurricular activities and internships allowed me to get better interview experiences,” said Peoples. “I have things to talk about. It’s not just I graduated from Stockton, it’s here’s what I did at Stockton.”

For information on how to join Model UN, visit their page on OspreyHub, and follow them on Instagram.